Some time in the country side

Trip Start Jun 15, 2008

Trip End Jun 15, 2009

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Flag of Australia Wauchope, New South Wales, Australia
Sunday, August 17, 2008

It was on to a sleepy village in New south wales called Long Flat for what turned out to be two weeks with my sister Niamh. We flew from Melbourne to Newcastle which is about two hours north of Sydney by car. From Newcastle it was another three hours North to Long Flat. We were finally getting to see some of the Australian country side and we were going to be seeing plenty of it over the coming weeks. On the car journey to my sisters place(which she shares with her partner Scotty and his son Louie) we were assured we would see Kangaroos, but like anything which you are assured you will see, you rarely end up seeing it. Its something I like to refer to as "Jinx" e.g.

NIAMH: "You will see loads of Kangaroos in the paddock around this bend"

JOHN: "You've just jinxed it so we wont."

Sure enough there were no kangaroos in the paddock around the bend.
We called into a shop on the way home for supplies(In Australia supplies generally consist of beer and perhaps something for the barbie, but mostly beer) and Niamh introduced me to an Aussie tradition on the last leg of the journey, having a beer(or in my case a cider) on the way home. I should clarify Niamh was not drinking as she drove, just myself and Caroline and anyways everyone knows its silly to drink and drive, you always spill it.
As I said earlier we ended up waiting two weeks in Long Flat and we enjoyed every minute of it. We were planning on heading up the east coast with two friends from home after our stay in Long Flat and they ended up taking longer to get up to us than originally planned but that just gave us more time to enjoy Long Flat.

port macquarie

Its the kind of place where neighbours still talk to each other, they look out for each other, they share their stuff with each other. The village consists of a school, a pub/hotel(with two rooms!) and a small shop(which somehow contains everything). We were staying with Niamh about a mile outside the village. Our first night was spent enjoying the Aussie country side with a few beers and a fire Blazing in the back yard. Like down south the temperature at night plummited to one or two degrees and unlike Ireland, a lot of houses in Oz dont have central heating so there was only one thing for it when we went to bed - Blankets, and lots of them. For our duration in Long Flat we had FIVE blankets on our bed at night, a record for us so far.

We got to enjoy lots of touristy things in the surrounding area during our stay, visitng the local wildlife sanctuary where we got to see everything from snakes to Koalas and kangaroos( strangely enough it was only after we got to see kangaroos in the wildlife sanctuary that we starting seeing them in the fields in the wild), we also went whale watching of the coast of a town called Port MacQuarie.The trip lasted for about an hour and a half and after an hour out at sea I was starting to doubt we would see them but they eventually made an appearance and it was amazing to see them. There was a female and a male and the female was lying on the surface of the water on her back, the reason being, we were told by the captain, is that if a female does not want to mate the only thing it can do to protect itself is lye on the surface with its genitals out of the water so the male can not get at it (pretty much like any mating ritual you see in the various pubs and clubs around Ireland).

lookout point

We also got to see a rugby league game during our stay in Long Flat, but this was not like travelling to our local town to see the game, it was a six hour round trip to see the Newcastle Knights play the Paramada eels. Six hours round trip seemed a bit much to me, but to the Aussies, apparently its a fairly average trip. Six hour round trips are only made on All IReland day in Ireland but then agaain Australia is the size of Europe so they probably think a little bigger.

One of the good things about our stay in Long Flat was we got to enjoy the country side. Scotty, Niamhs partner, like all Aussies enjoys the finer things in life - Fishing, hunting, the outdoors, the sea, BBQS and beer and we were lucky to enjoy these with Niamh, Scotty and Louie during our stay. Maybe we did not catch any fish, maybe we didnt have much success at hunting but we definitly enjoyed ourselves.

One of the things I did notice during the two weeks is that the names of rivers, towns and areas are so, well, unimaginative. "Sarahs creek, Gannons creek, Mahers creek Kings creek" are but just a few examples. Much like we choose the lottery numbers by putting down our loved ones age or DOB its like the first settlers in Australia said that they would just name everything after their loved ones.
FIRST SETTLER: " ok, I've named something after my sister, my two daughters and my mother. Who else can I name something after? BINGO! my father, Michaels creek it is"

Come on Australia a bit more imagination.

After Long flat we headed to North to Brisbane to meet up with friends to travel the east coast. Expect updates in the coming weeks.